System and method for generating high-power ultra-short pulses in lasers

Abstract

A system and method for generating ultra-short pulses intended to be inserted into a ring laser with a regulator of a pulsed signal of a certain intensity, the system includes an optical attenuator that allows the intensity of the pulsed signal to be adjusted at the input of an optical guide section, and a distributed amplification device inserted in the optical guide that make it possible to manage the power of the signal therein, so that it propagates as solitons or as self-similar pulses without suffering unwanted distortions despite the increase in the length of the laser cavity, increasing the power of the pulsed signal and making it possible to exceed the usual power limits of this type of laser.

Description

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION[0001]The main object of the present invention is a system and method for generating high-power ultra-short pulses in lasers. The system is based on increasing the length of the laser cavity or ring and the use of distributed amplification.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Today there are numerous applications for ultra-fast radiation sources, such as materials processing, telecommunications or tomography. This has led to the development of a large number of investigations related to this field.[0003]Among the different options present for the implementation of ultra-fast sources, those based on mode locking stand out. A mode-locked laser uses any active technique, for example the use of modulators, or passive technique, such as the use of saturable absorbers, to force a regime in which a sequence of regularly spaced ultra-short pulses is emitted.[0004]This type of configuration can be implemented, for example, in fibre optic laser systems that use a ring confi...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent is about a system and method for creating powerful ultra-short laser pulses. This is done by making the laser cavity or ring longer and using distributed amplification. The technical effect is the ability to generate high-power pulses with extremely short durations.

Problems solved by technology

Despite their advantages, the use of mode-locked ultra-fast fibre lasers is still restricted to certain areas, mainly due to the pulse energy and peak power achieved, which are limited in practice.

This limitation hinders the use thereof in the processing of materials or industrial applications that require the use of very high powers.

The most direct way to increase the pulse energy of mode-locked fibre lasers is to increase the length of the cavity, but the usual result of this method is the increase of the temporal width of the signal to the nanosecond range due to dispersive effects.

Although there have been recent developments of passive mode-locked fibre lasers capable of reaching peak powers to the order of megawatts from the use of photonic-crystal fibres, this goal seems unattainable using conventional low-cost communication fibre.

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